Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain <br />Somewhere in ear-shot for the story's end, <br />Old Dublin merchant "free of the ten and four" <br />Or trading out of Galway into Spain; <br />Old country scholar, Robert Emmet's friend, <br />A hundred-year-old memory to the poor; <br />Merchant and scholar who have left me blood <br />That has not passed through any huckster's loin, <br />Soldiers that gave, whatever die was cast: <br />A Butler or an Armstrong that withstood <br />Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne <br />James and his Irish when the Dutchman crossed; <br />Old merchant skipper that leaped overboard <br />After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay; <br />You most of all, silent and fierce old man, <br />Because the daily spectacle that stirred <br />My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say, <br />"Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun"; <br />Pardon that for a barren passion's sake, <br />Although I have come close on forty-nine, <br />I have no child, I have nothing but a book, <br />Nothing but that to prove your blood and mine. <br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/responsibilities-introduction/
